Thirty five years after the conclusion of the Vietnam War, Tim O’Brien’s collection of stories about an American platoon, “The Things They Carried,” is being reissued as it celebrates its own 20th anniversary. Jeffrey Brown talks to the author about the experiences that led him to write the book.

You can find a copy of The Things They Carried in our library: PS3565 .B75 T48 1991

Here is the video of this interview

Looking Back at the Vietnam War with Author, Veteran Tim O’Brien

Hear that lonesome whippoorwill? Then, again, maybe it’s a robin. Spring is in the air and the birds are tweeting in full chorus. If you’ve ever wondered what kind of bird is serenading as you wander across campus, check out the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds Webby Award-nominated website. The online guide to birds offers definitions and information on 585 species of birds, photos, bird-watching and identification tips, and coolest of all, video and sound of bird songs and calls. So, while the weather is warm, listen to the birds sing - and impress your friends by rattling off the name of the twitterer in the trees! After all, come October, they’ll all be gone again…

We just received our copy of the cool film The National Parks: America’s Best Idea by Ken Burns. This is at once a stunningly beautiful documentary while telling a hidden history of populist efforts to save disappearing landscapes. Ken Burns has the special talent of teaching us something new about ourselves while using things that are so very familiar. Here is the catalog description and a short preview from YouTube:

Traces the birth of the national park idea in the mid-1800s and follows its evolution for nearly 150 years. Using archival photographs, first-person accounts of historical characters, personal memories and analysis from more than 40 interviews, and what Burns believes is the most stunning cinematography in Florentine Films’ history, the series chronicles the steady addition of new parks through the stories of the people who helped create them and save them from destruction

YouTube Preview of The National Parks by Ken Burns:

Sometimes we need a little bit of help when we are trying to settle on a research paper topic.  The MVCC Library provides access to SIRS Researcher, a database that not only contains thousands of articles on hot topic issues across varying disciplines, but also offers a way to explore different subjects.

From the database homepage, you can peruse a plethora of “leading issues.” You can view the Top Ten issues, an A-Z list, see issue Groups sorted by discipline, or try a Visual Browse.

Students who need to get some interesting facts for their research papers should consider looking at the Research Tools section of the EB Online database. Three interesting and potentially useful options are  Timelines, World Data Analyst, and Compare Countries. Note: while EB Online has many citations for its various searches, citing the Research Tools will require some original work on the part of the student mainly because each result is unique.